October 2009 - Author Anna Sklar has provided photos from Brown Acres - An Intimate History of the Los Angeles Sewers. Her book describes the complex and often alarming history of the Los Angeles city sewer system, complete with the relationship between headstrong politicians and the reformers who sought to “heal the bay” after a century of pollution and contamination. Photos include the ocean outfall from LA's original Hyperion plant, the "sewage pier" and building of the new Hyperion Treatment Plant. View the photos here.

May 2009 - The Green Bay Sewage Treatment Plant was built in Green Bay, Wisconsin, in 1933. The plant, expanded in 1936 and the 1950s, has since been demolished. Thanks to Tom Bates for contributing unique photos and design plans of the plant.

February 2009 - The Thunderbox Road Public Art Project features outhouses designed by artists. Thanks to Texas Hill Country editor John Hallowell for information about this unusual event.

2008

October 2008 - New Sewer History poster! The story of Leopold Socha and Stefan Wroblewski, Polish sewer workers who saved a group of Jews during World War II, delivering food and supplies to their refuge in the sewers of Lvov, Poland, for 14 months.

July 2008 - "The Third Man," a 1949 film starring Orson Welles, features a long scene set in the sewers of Vienna, Austria. A Viennese museum celebrates the film, including the unusual manhole design seen in the movie. Brought to our attention by Bobbi Mastrangelo, "The Grate Lady."

November 2007 - Few people think of the lowly manhole cover as art, but Bobbi Mastrangelo, a Florida artist known as "The Grate Lady," uses the designs and textures of manhole covers to create beautiful sculptures and handmade paper pieces. See some of her work in our Sewers in the Culture section, which features ways that sewers have entered our culture in art, sculpture, literature, music and even a sewer pipe hotel.

October 2007 - The first modern sewers in Brussels, Belgium, were built in the last half of the 1800s. They are predominantly brick and oval-shaped, similar to sewers in other large European cities of the time. Brussels was unusual, however, in choosing to make the Senne River, heavily polluted from sewage and garbage since the 16th century, into a large covered channel -- essentially turning a river into a permanent sewer. Only in the last few years, after construction of a wastewater treatment plant, has work begun on reclaiming the river and returning it to its former state. Thanks to Vincent Duseigne of Brussels, Belgium, for information about the Brussels sewers and for his large collection of photos of the sewers and sewer workers of Brussels.

September 2007 - Will water conservation cause blockage problems with low-slope HCSs and sewers? Some research indicates that low-flow devices may not cause significant problems, but grey water systems which divert wastewater from high-flow appliances like washing machines might. British researchers are investigating the issue, and a British company is developing a low-flow toilet with a new 'displaced-air' flushing principle for toilets (neither vacuum nor compressed air) which reduces the flushing volume to 1.5 litres. The air assisted drainage also overcomes the problem of poor waste transportation with reduced flush volumes. Thanks to Garry Moore, Managing Director of Phoenix Product Development Limited, London.

July/August 2007 - The value of effluent came center-stage in Pima County, Arizona, when the City of Marana sought to withdraw from a governmental agreement and take control of a treatment plant and all its effluent. The county responded by making the treatment plant a park to prevent a take-over. Marana wants the effluent in order to meet state-mandated requirements for renewable water sources to support growth.

April 2007 - Beit She'an in modern-day Israel was the site of extensive Roman Era construction including baths and latrines. Thanks to Professor Kay Axhausen of Zurich, Switzerland, for her photos of an unusual Roman-era latrine.

March 2007 - The material PVC was invented in 1835 and was first used to make pipe in the 1930s in Germany. We have received an article and timeline about the history of PVC pipe in waters and sewers. Thanks to Steve Cooper and Rober Walker of the Uni-Bell PVC Pipe Association.

Sanitation - the Greatest Medical Advance Since 1840. The importance of sanitation got some recognition last month when the British Medical Journal asked a group of experts what the most important medical advance since 1840 is. Sanitation won the vote over antibiotics and all the advances of the 20th century. See article from ABC News.

2006

December 2006
- Hydrographs are used in sewer monitoring, and often make records of non-sewerage events like football games, holidays, hurricanes and even the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Kevin Enfinger, P.E., has contributed a poster and article showing the tracks these events make in the sewer record.

November 2006
- From "All pipe is to be made of a long hole..." to "All pipes shorter than 1/8" in length are very expensive to use, requiring many joints -- they are generally known as washers, " this Powerpoint show (located under Miscellaneous/Humor) will teach you everything you need to know about pipe, starting with the little known fact that the inside diameter of a pipe should be smaller than the outside diameter. Thanks to Raj Bhattarai, P.E., City of Austin Water Utility, Texas.

October 2006 - Thanks to Tom Bates for a number of U.S. patents from the 1800s, including the Shone and Liernur patents for comprehensive sewer systems and several patents by U.S. inventors for other comprehensive systems (never implemented as far as we know). The patents can be found under Design before 1900 and Sewer Cleaning Equipment. Mr. Bates is a high school student with interests in pump stations, wastewater treatment, ships, and mechanical (hvac and plumbing) systems. He has toured about 40 sewage treatment plants to date and has contributed a number of pump station plans to Sewerhistory in the past.

August 2006 - A rare find, a movie of an alligator inside a manhole in Mississippi after Hurricane Katrina, will send chills up the spines of sewer maintenance operators everywhere. Thanks to Tim Ware of Garner Environmental Services, Inc.

June 2006 - We are very pleased to discover a comprehensive website about Victorian London at www.victorianlondon.org. There is a large section about Sewers and Sanitation under "Health and Hygiene," and materials can be found under "Diseases" (cholera and typhus) and by searching "sewer". This website provides a graphic look into the horrible conditions that preceded modern sanitation, in the words and pictures of the time. A huge thanks goes to Lee Jackson, the creator of the website, for this impressive collection of original materials.

May 2006 - Collection Systems Past and Present, by James L. Foil, Joel A. Cerwick, and James E. White. Thanks to the authors for permission to post this overview of the history of sewer systems. (Located in Articles under "Sewer History by Era.")

December 2005 - Note to Internet
Explorer users: A previous version of the Google Toolbar popup blocker
may be blocking graphics and web pages that open in another window.
MOST OF OUR GRAPHICS OPEN THIS WAY. If you cannot open our graphics,
either disable the Google Toolbar popup blocker for our site, or install
the current version of the toolbar. In our experiments, this solved
the problem. Please contact our webmaster if
your cannot access our graphics and we will try to help you. Popup
blockers should not block graphics that open like ours, but some glitch
seems to have caused this to happen.

October 2005 - We are always glad
to see wastewater agencies working to preserve their history, so we
invite you to look at a recently posted website describing the history
of King County's Regional Wastewater Treatment Utility (Seattle,
Washington, area). Our compliments to King County staff for this detailed
and informative site.

More information about
wood fibre pipe, including "papier mache" pipe produced
in England as recently as the 1950s from shredded newspapers. This
must take the award as one of the oddest pipe materials ever used.
Jon Schladweiler describes
it in his
article as a "coal tar impregnated toilet paper tube."

July 2005 - The History Channel
will broadcast a Modern Marvels show featuring the history of sewers
on Wednesday, July 27th, 2005, and on Saturday, July 30th, 2005. Check
local listings for times in your area. www.sewerhistory.org
and Jon Schladweiler contributed photos and information to the show.

June 2005 - Plans are underway for
the Sewer History Exhibit to be on display at WEFTEC '05 (Oct 30 -
Nov 2, 2005) in Washington DC. Thanks to the combined efforts of NASSCO (the National Association of Sewer Service Companies) and WEF (the
Water Environment Federation).

May 2005 - "Coal tar
impregnated wood fibre pipe" evolved out of water and electrical
conduit made since the 1890s with wood fibers. Two of the best-known
brands were Orangeburg Pipe and Bermico Pipe. We have expanded our
materials on this pipe with an updated article
by Jon Schladweiler and several
ads from the 1950s for Bermico
sewer pipe. Take a look at the Orangeburg
photos also.

April 2005 - We have added several
chapters of a British sanitation handbook, "Reid's
Practical Sanitation," published in 1948. Courtesy
of James Joyce, P.E., Technical Director, Odor and Corrosion Technology
Consultants, Inc., Houston, Texas. (See February entry for more from
Mr. Joyce.)

March 2005 - Being slightly mad,
we always enjoy great finds in the toilet literature! The New York Public
Library has several
digitized catalogs of toilets, baths, latrines and plumbing fixtures
from the late 1800s and early 1900s. (More detailed links can be found
in our Toilet Photos/Graphics section.) Thanks to our researcher Paul Matty for finding this internet
gem.

With permission from the Journal of Urban Technology,
we have added "Urban
Wastewater Management in the United States: Past, Present, and Future,"
by Steven J. Burian, Stephan J. Nix, Robert E. Pitt, and S. Rocky Durrans.
This excellent article covers the 1800s on, and includes discussions
of early privy/cesspool usage, disease control measures, and separate
and combined sewer systems in the United States.

Sewerhistory.org
has been awarded the Talking Hands Award for First Quarter 2005. This award hightlights
web authors "who through their creative excellence provide a web
site which teaches, contains teaching elements in sufficient detail,
and otherwise leave a visitor with something of significant value after
returning to their normal daily activities."

January 2005 - An
article about John Harington (the inventor of a valve closet toilet
design in the 1500s), including a rare 14th century treatise on sanitation
called "The School of Salernum," which throws light on contradictory
aspects of sanitation in the Middle Ages - a mix of common sense, herbal
lore, and superstition.

September 2004 - We have expanded our
section on Paris with several
brochures and posters about
the Paris sewer system, courtesy of Bruno de Ville d'Avray, Mairie
de Paris / Direction de la protection de l'environnement, Section
de l'assainissement de Paris; and Lucien Finel, previous Deputy to
the Mayor of Paris (in charge of water and sanitation management).

AECPortico,
one of the UK's leading directories for architecture, engineering and
construction resources, chose Sewerhistory.org as Site of the Week.

June 2004 - Two unusual photos showing snakes
and an alligator encountered during utility construction in Orlando,
Florida.

April 2004 - Articles about several
comprehensive piping and sewage collection systems from the late 1800s
and early 1900s. The Berlier System used in Paris (see Samuel
M. Gray, pp. 26-30), the Liernur System used in Holland (see Samuel
M. Gray, pp. 22-26), and the Shone System developed in England
(see the Manufacturer
and Builder, ASCE
Transactions, and Samuel
M. Gray, pp. 30-33) all utilized pneumatic pressure to lift sewage
and deliver it to collection centers. The Parmley
System (United States) was a modular method of pipe construction.

October 2003 - Two engraved Scientific
American covers from the 1880s and 1890s illustrating construction
of large sewers in New York. These are works of art in addition to their
historical interest.

July 2003 - Photos
and an article about
two sinkholes on a main thoroughfare in Tucson, Arizona, in September
2002. Damage to a 42" interceptor caused millions of gallons of
discharge into a local river, and a $7 million repair job.

June 2003 - A new section called
"Sewers in the news." Recent stories
include the Microsoft iLoo -- an internet-enabled portable toilet --
and stolen Taiwanese manhole covers appearing in China.

April 2003 - A large number of U.S.
patents related to sewers. Most can be found under "Manholes,"
"Manhole cover history," and "Sewer cleaning equipment"
in the Articles and Photos/Graphics sections

2002

Tracking Down
the Roots of Our Sanitary Sewersreceives the Public
Works Historical Society's Aedile Award

In
September 2002, Jon Schladweiler received the Aedile Award for
outstanding contributions
toward the collection, preservation and dissemination of public works
history for his oral presentation, "Tracking Down the Roots of
Our Sanitary Sewers." The award was presented at the American
Public Works Association's 2002 International Public Works Congress
and Exhibition,
in Kansas City, Missouri.